


A Past That Haunts

by 00javierbardem



Category: 00silva - Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00javierbardem/pseuds/00javierbardem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiago is forced to face the haunting horrors of his past, as well as discover new truths about himself and who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Past That Haunts

**Author's Note:**

> BOY. I have worked super hard on this lol. It's my longest drabble yet and it was an exhausting one to write, but it's always worth it in the end. Enjoy! :)

"If your past does not haunt you to some degree, it is not a past at all." -Unknown

 

Silva squeezed his eyes shut in a wince as the painful impact of the chapel floor reverberated throughout his body like a pulse of electricity. An agonizing ache throbbed in his back where the knife penetrated the skin and crawled to his shoulders and hips. Every inch of his body hurt like hell, both inside and out as he peeled his eyes open to stare at the chapel wall, paralyzed. Darkness swarmed around his vision like a shadow drawing nearer from all sides. It closed in until it was all he could see and until he was unsure if his eyes remained open or had fallen shut. All of the pain that vibrated throughout his every nerve steadily began to fade and go numb, as if there were some magical painkiller kicking in to his system.

When the pain had completely vanished, Silva found himself engulfed in blackness. It surrounded him like a suffocating dead end. He spun around frantically, crying for help as breathing became more and more difficult. 

"Wait! No! Please help!" He pitched in a voice of despair. He dropped to his knees on an invisible floor of darkness, clutching his throat and gasping for nonexistent oxygen. He drew in shallow, panicked breaths that lacked the necessary air as the darkness pressed against his body from all sides, squeezing the life from him as if he were a trapped rat in a trash compactor. The darkness pushed against the petrified man until his attempts at yelping had completely ceased and there was nothing left but the darkness.

Tiago's eyes flew open and he clutched his chest, gasping for air, which thankfully, he received in delicious gulps. He heaved deep sighs until his lungs felt satisfied, and he stared at his surroundings in puzzlement. He was standing in a chapel that was dimly lit by an orange glow from the exterior. A man's corpse lay beside his feet, draped in black and with a dagger's handle protruding from his back. This all felt familiar. 

Tiago knelt down to examine the body's face, which was pale and lifeless, with deep blue eyes staring into nothingness and strands of white-blonde hair draped in strings across his brow. The face was reminiscent of his own. Tiago furrowed his brow in confusion, but was interrupted from further exploration of the body by the sound of a mournful sob echoing in the church, startling him. He glanced toward the noise and saw a man kneeling, with a limp body in his arms. 

"So much death," Tiago whispered to himself, warily approaching the weeping man. His eyes ran over the elderly man standing in the corner with his hat pressed against his heart in wary suspicion, but he ignored him as he came closer to the man emitting heart-wrenching sobs. Tiago's heart dropped as he saw the pale gray face of a woman he immediately recognized.

"Mommy?" He muttered, his voice cracking with emotion as he realized she wasn't breathing. He stared at the man who held her so tenderly in his arms as he gently pressed his lips to her forehead. Tiago knelt down, his eyes frantically darting from the man to her in search of an explanation. The man gently set her down on the chapel floor as tears trickled from Tiago's eyes.

"No. No. You can help her, can't you? She's not gone. She's not gone, right?" Tiago stuttered in an emotional panic, unable to bear the thought of M passing away and leaving him behind. The man ignored him, never taking his eyes from her peaceful face. Tiago scoffed as his watery eyes ran over her body, but pausing at the wound on her side.

"What have they done to you?" He murmured in a hushed, breathy tone. He reached out in an attempt to caress her injury, but his hand merely came into contact with nothingness. Tiago squeezed his eyes shut, pushing the salty tears from his eyes in sorrow before opening them to gaze at her face again. How at peace she appeared. Never could he recall her looking so innocent and so young. Tiago looked up at the man who still hovered over her corpse and watched the tears fall down his cheeks, reflecting the orange glow from outside. 

"She was my mommy, you know," Tiago childishly retorted in frustration, thinking that this man couldn't have possibly been closer to her than he was. "She was my mother and mine alone," he supported like a child claiming possession of their favorite toy. "Not yours...." Tiago arose from the ground and stared at the stranger. He was about to angrily shout at the oblivious man, but was cut off by a numbness in his body that spread like a wildfire, producing the sensation of being weightless. Tiago stared at his hands in horror as they faded into transparency, as did his arms, his legs, his abdomen, and finally his entire body.

When Tiago's eyes reopened, he was somewhere completely different. The familiar scent of freshly cleaned windows and scrubbed desks invaded Tiago's nose. He was in a large, bland office with the only source of color emitting from a hideous ceramic bulldog decoration with the union jack painted atop its back, which sat patiently on a large, mahogany desk. M sat in the chair behind the desk, flipping through packets in aimless boredom, appearing as though she just wanted to kill time. Tiago couldn't help but crack a smile at the sight of her alive and younger, with her auburn hair just barely beginning to fade to gray and her skin not yet wrinkled with age. She was beautiful with her motherly appearance.

Her office door swung open and a young man in a suit and tie strolled in shyly, stopping in front of her desk with his hands clasped behind his back. His hair was a dark brown- almost black- and his skin radiated with a foreign tan. His chocolate brown eyes stared at M softly in admiration, and Tiago cocked his head to the side as he studied his younger self, soaking in every detail.

"Ah, yes. Agent Rodriguez," M greeted, glancing up from her papers as though she was far too consumed in them to have noticed the agent's entry. Tiago gave a wry smile, noting on how many times she had fooled him into thinking that everything she did was imperative.

"I have a proposition for you," she continued in that youthful voice that she had maintained her entire life. Tiago noticed as his younger self's lips twitched at the corners slightly and his eyes reflected an excited glint. "How would you like to be moved to station H?" M asked bluntly. The agent's brows furrowed subtly and his flawlessly-sculpted pink lips parted.

"Station H?" He verified, his voice bearing a thicker accent than he had now. M only pursed her lips. "You- You're asking me if I would like to move to Hong Kong?" The agent repeated, surprised at the question. 

"Yes. It would seem that we have a lack of intelligence over there and frankly, I think you have just the skills they require," M said. It was meant to sound like a compliment, but nothing M said ever sounded flattering. Tiago watched in pity as the agent's expression constantly shifted. He could only imagine the conflict that was occurring internally, he wished he could remember what it was like just as much as he was glad he couldn't.

"Don't think of it as good riddance, Tiago. Think of it as a promotion. You should be flattered. Not many agents get this opportunity," M assured, noticing his look of disappointment which had been the final emotion to cross his expression. His head fell to the floor as his eyes shifted back in forth in thought. His furrowed brow never retreated back to normal.

"Yes, ma'am," he finally uttered. 

"You'll leave in two days time. I'll speak to you again once your flight has landed," she stated. The agent gave a reluctant nod and eased out of the room. Tiago watched the man as he passed right beside him, his hurt thoughts were as clear as day and they gnawed at Tiago's heart.

"Will I ever see her again?" Tiago recited aloud thoughtfully, both from hearing the agent's thoughts and from recalling them in his own past. The door shut behind the young agent with a hollow click, leaving everything behind it, including Tiago himself, feeling empty.

Tiago turned to look at M, but the world around him transitioned into a blurry, wobbly mess, as though he had just spun around several times. He struggled to keep his balance as he became more and more dizzy, but was unsuccessful and fell to the ground, and right past it. Tiago fell through a vast dark space, unsure of when he'd ever stop.

Tiago's eyes flew open once more and he gasped, thankful to be standing on solid ground once again. He was in a cluttered apartment room with only one source of light coming from a white lamp on the far side of the room. A silhouette of a man sitting at a desk, frantically typing on a laptop came into Tiago's view. He approached the man, sighing when he realized it was his younger self again. He was shirtless and his face was illuminated by the single lamp in the room. Beads of sweat fell past his hard, focused eyes. Tiago narrowed his own eyes at himself, following his gaze to the screen.

"What are you so focused on?" Tiago muttered, focusing his stare on the screen. All that was visible were numbers and codes. Hundreds of them. Tiago glanced back at himself in confusion, before the realization hit him like a brick in the head. The impact made his blood turn to ice and his eyes go wide in horror.

"No! Stop! Stop it! Don't do this!" Tiago cried to himself, but it was useless. "God dammit don't do this to yourself! Stop this now! Please! Please don't! You have no idea!" Tiago plead as the desperation seeped into his tone further and further with each passing word and tears fell from his frightened eyes. "PLEASE! GOD DON'T DO THIS! SHE'S NOT WORTH IT! TIAGO, NO!" But it was far too late. Tiago's cries were drowned out into a distant echo as the world around him shifted once more.

His surroundings were bizarre. He was in what vaguely reminded him of a vacant, abandoned warehouse. The air was hot and thick. Chains and cuffs hung from sections of the grimy walls. A dreadful fear crept up Tiago's spine. He knew this place. How could he forget it? It was the last place he truly remembered being. For all he could remember, he died here.

"God, please don't let me relive this," Tiago muttered, his eyes already stinging with tears. As if on cue, a rusty steel door swung open and four Chinese men entered. Tiago felt every hair on his body rise in alarm. Two of the men dragged a limp body with a sack pulled over his head. One of them closed the door behind them, and the two men hauling the body tossed it carelessly to the floor.

"Strip him!" One of them demanded. Tiago nearly had to look away as the two men roughly tore open his shirt and yanked off his trousers, leaving him completely exposed. Then they dragged him over to the wall where cuffs hung and slammed him against it, chaining his wrists above his head and ripping the sack from over his head. Tiago's hand flew to his mouth at the sight of his own face. A black eye swelled gruesomely from his face. His nose gushed astonishing amounts of blood and his mouth hung ajar, letting saliva drip in thick red strings from his lips. Tiago shook his head in disbelief, and the shock consumed him so much that he didn't even hear the question one of the Chinese men shouted at him. Whatever it was, his younger self responded bitterly by spitting at the man. This earned him a hard whack to the ribs and a pain-stricken yelp. 

"Please stop. What have I done to deserve this?" Tiago asked as he looked up towards the ceiling and falling to his knees. He watched from afar as he was beaten and battered, but every noise had been drowned out except for the desperate and agonized screams he released with every infliction. Tiago bawled relentlessly at the sight of himself so helpless and so heartbroken, when all he had ever wanted was her love and her approval. It was like abusing a poor, defenseless puppy when all they have ever done is begged for your attention.

The environment shifted once again, but Tiago did not go anywhere. In fact, he was kept right where he was, but the Chinese guards and his former self vanished. Tiago stood to his feet warily. He turned around in search of what scene was to displayed in front him now, and he quickly received his answer. There he was, placed in a chair, wrists strapped to the arms of the chair. His entire body was cut, bruised, and burned. His eyes had lost their glint of resistance and were now dull and lifeless. Tiago watched on in sympathy, realizing now that mere months had passed since the torment he just witnessed.

Tiago stood idly by, never tearing his eyes from the young man in the chair, even as several Chinese guards entered the room. Everything else besides the broken man in the chair was black and white and vague. Only the man in the chair mattered. Only the man in the chair was important. He gazed on in silent tears as the man was questioned and beaten. 

"So this is where it ends," Tiago uttered in a broken whisper to himself.

"No, Tiago," a voice replied. Tiago's head whipped to the side in alarm at the reply. A familiar-looking man draped in a black trench coat emerged from the shadows. His hair was very short and a dirty blonde and he had stunning blue eyes. Tiago recognized him as the man who held M's body in his arms at the chapel. "This is where it begins," he finished. Tiago stared at him in bewilderment. The man's eyes flicked over to where the past Tiago sat, and Tiago's eyes followed them there....and stayed.

A piercing scream erupted and invaded Tiago's ears. He watched in terror as his former self shook and convulsed in the chair. Only the whites of his eyes were visible and his mouth foamed profusely. Tiago's head shot back over to where the man had stood before in horrified concern, but he had vanished into thin air. Before Tiago could react, an excruciating throb pounded in his head, causing him to fall to his knees and clutch the sides of his temples. He grimaced and groaned in pain as nightmarish images flashed throughout his mind at an ungodly rate, yet he could vividly see every detail in each of them. He could see his own face distorted and mutilated. Half of his face was sunken in and the skin beneath his eye drooped as if a weight pulled it down. He could see platinum blonde hair and ocean blue eyes that seemed too flawless to be natural. He could see a dark-haired young woman with heavy eye makeup and a cigarette between her fingers. She blew a stream of wispy silver smoke towards Tiago and suddenly, the pain and the images disappeared. There was nothing.

Tiago now stood in a massive room. Rows of tangled wires and electronic equipment aligned the room, leaving a wide walkway in between. Tiago stood behind a man in an expensive suit, who sat in a chair. Men with guns stood beside Tiago patiently, as if this had been practiced. What really caught Tiago's eye was the blonde-haired man dressed in an intricate brown suit topped with a creamy white jacket that fit his structure perfectly. His voice reeked of flamboyance and cheerfulness, but his eyes maintained a grim truth behind them.

"If you wanted, you could create your own secret missions as I do," the man performed as the other man watched with deep interest from the chair. "Hm? Name it. Name it!" The man strolled over to a computer and tapped a few keys."Destabilizing a multinational by manipulating stocks. Bip! Easy. Interrupt transmissions from a spy satellite over Kabul. Bip! Done. Hmm... Rig an election in Uganda. All to the highest bidder."

"Or a gas explosion in London?" The man in the chair tutted matter-of-factly. Tiago froze as the realization struck him that it was the same man from the chapel and the same man who spoke to him just moments ago. 

"James," Tiago whispered, the name rolling off of his tongue in such a familiar fashion that it was as if it had been there all along.

"Mmhmm. Just point and click," the platinum-haired man responded delightfully. Tiago knew his face from somewhere, but he couldn't recall where from.

"Well, everybody needs a hobby," James replied bitterly, but Tiago couldn't peel his eyes from the eccentric, light-voiced man whom he felt he should know. He didn't. The man scoffed in disappointment.

"Let me show you something," he invited. James arose from the chair reluctantly and followed his opposer. Tiago desired to follow them and watch the situation unravel, but he was whisked off somewhere else against his will.

A transparent cell sat in the center of the gray room. The blonde man stood upright within it, in a gray jumpsuit, a face of disbelief and anger directed towards M, who stood in front of it, looking unimpressed. James stood off to the side, as well as another man Tiago had never seen.

"Say my name!" The man disrupted. "Say it! My real name. I know you remember it." Tiago couldn't help but feel the unmistakeable feeling of unease creep into his gut. M scowled.

"Your name is on the memorial wall of the very building you attacked. I would have it struck off. Soon, your past will be as nonexistent as your future. I'll never see you again." Tiago was shocked at how foreboding her tone was. How she left this man nothing to feel satisfied with; no answer to give him hope. She turned and headed for the exit, James following her, when the man spoke again, and Tiago could hear the despair in his voice as if it were being shouted through a megaphone.

"Do you know what it does to you!? Hydrogen cyanide!?" Tiago watched as the scene unfolded in what seemed like slow motion. He gazed on, paralyzed, as the man reached inside of his mouth, twisted, and pulled out a metal mouth piece. He watched in awe as the left side of his face sunk in like a cave and his under-eye drooped without the support of the device.

"Look upon your work... Mother," he drawled. His teeth were nearly nonexistent. A feeling of dread and guilt and fear washed over Tiago like a powerful wave. He knew this man. Only one person that Tiago knew of referred to M as.... Mother.

"No. God, no," he breathed in denial. His mind rejected the thought immediately that this broken, damaged man could possibly be himself. He shook his head in rejection, but a part of him knew this truth and welcomed it like a visiting relative. Tiago's thoughts and feelings conflicted for what seemed like an eternity, but he knew he had to face the truth. He could not run from it. So he jogged after James and M when they left, passing right through the closed door and into the corridor, ignoring the spine-tingling cackle that carried with him from the room.

They had paused in the middle of the hall. Tiago approached them to hear their exchange of words.

"I want this resolved!" M demanded calmly. James stared on at her, the question he wanted to ask obviously present in his gaze. "His name was Tiago Rodriguez," M granted. Tiago's brow furrowed as his face faded to a grimace at the name. He wanted the truth. There it was.

"He was a brilliant agent. But he started operating beyond his brief- hacking the Chinese. The handover was coming up and they were onto him, so, I gave him up. I received six agents in return and a peaceful transition." Tiago rested his hands on his face, massaging his temples, trying to consume the overwhelming amount of information that was being hurled at him far too quickly. He didn't die in the hands of the Chinese. He tried to end his own life, failed, and became this... This monster. It all made sense now. He was using James to get to her.

Once again, the environment faded and distorted, hauling Tiago off to some other place to witness some other event, but he was tired. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

A rain fell heavily from the silver sky. Tombstones of different names and different stories surrounded Tiago, each one carrying a burden. Tiago's eyes fell upon one in particular.

Olivia Mansfield  
Born December 9th, 1934  
Deceased October 26th, 2012

"You didn't kill her," a voice called, reading Tiago's thoughts and answering the question in his mind. Tiago turned lazily to look at James, who was approaching him slowly.  
"I know. He did."

"No," James replied swiftly. "He didn't either. One of his men did." Tiago stared at James, who was now close enough that he could make out every detail of his worn face. His eyes were as startling as they always had been.

"How do you know?" Tiago sighed. 

"I've seen it," James answered, his eyes narrowing slightly. Tiago looked at him quizzically.

"So, you've seen-"

"My past. Yes. I've experienced everything you have, just about my own life." Tiago couldn't hold back a laugh of both relief and exhaustion. James smirked.

"Come on," he called, turning to walk away.

"Come where?" Tiago questioned. James turned to face him, cracking a wide smile.

"Just come on will you? She's waiting!" Tiago grinned and started towards James and together they walked, making cheerful conversation the entire time.


End file.
